Sergey Vasilyevich Rachnianinov was among those Russian
composers who chose exile rather than remain in Russia after the Revolution of
1917, the consequent civil turmoil and, as it turned out, the years of despotic
oppression that followed. He was born at Semyonovo in 1873 into a family of
strong military traditions on his mother’s side and more remotely on his
father’s. A tendency to extravagance had depleted his father’s fortunes and
made it necessary to sell off much of their land and dissipate his wife’s
dowry. As a result of this, the childhood of Rachmaninov was largely spent at
the one remaining family estate at Oneg, near Novgorod. The reduction in family
circumstances had at least one happier result: when it became necessary to sell
this estate and move to St Petersburg, the expense of educating the boy for the
imperial service proved too great. Rachmaninov could make use, instead, of his
musical gifts, entering St Petersburg Conservatory at the age of nine with a
scholarship.

Showing no particular industry as a student and lacking the
attention he needed at home, in 1885 Rachmaninov failed all his general subject
examinations at the Conservatory and there were threats that his scholarship
would be withdrawn. His mother, now separated from her husband and responsible
for her son’s welfare, arranged, on the advice of the well known pianist
Alexander Siloti, that he should move to Moscow to study with Zverev, a teacher
known to impose the strictest discipline. In Zverev’s house, however
uncongenial the rigorous routine, he acquired much of his phenomenal ability as
a pianist, while broadening his musical understanding by attending concerts in
the city. At the age of fifteen he became a pupil of Zverev’s former student
Siloti, a musician who had also studied with Tchaikovsky, Nikolay Rubinstein
and, thereafter, with Liszt. Rachmaninov had lessons in harmony and
counterpoint with Sergey Taneyev and Arensky, and his growing interest in
composition led to a quarrel with Zverev and removal to the house of his
relations, the Satins.

In 1891 Rachmaninov completed his piano studies at the
Conservatory and the composition of his Piano Concerto No. 1. The following
year he graduated from the composition class and composed the notorious Prelude
in C sharp minor, a piece that was to haunt him by its excessive popularity.
His early career brought initial success as a composer, halted by the failure
of his first symphony at its first performance in 1897, when it was conducted
badly by Glazunov, apparently drunk at the time, and then reviewed in the
cruellest terms by César Cui who described it as a student attempt to depict in
music the seven plagues of Egypt. Rachmaninov busied himself as a conductor,
accepting an engagement in this capacity with Mamontov’s Moscow Private Russian
Opera Company. He was only able to return to composition after a course of
treatment with Dr Nikolay Dahl, a believer in the efficacy of hypnotism. The
immediate result was the second of his four piano concertos, a work that has
proved to be one of the most immediately popular of all he wrote.

The years before the Russian revolution brought continued
successful activity as a composer and as a conductor. In 1902 Rachmaninov
married Natalya Satina and went on to pursue a career that was bringing him
increasing international fame. There were journeys abroad and a busy
professional life, from which summer holidays at the estate of Ivanovka, which
he finally acquired from the Satins in 1910, provided respite. During the war,
however depressing the circumstances, he continued his concert engagements, not
being required for military service, as he had anticipated. All this was
interrupted by the abdication of the Tsar in 1917 and the beginning of the
Revolution.

Rachmaninov left Russia in 1917, and from then until his
death in Beverly Hills in 1943 he was obliged to rely largely on performance
for a living. Now there was, in consequence, much less time for composition, as
he undertook demanding concert-tours during which he dazzled audiences in
Europe and America with his remarkable powers as a pianist. His house at
Ivanovka was destroyed in the Russian civil war and in 1931, the year of his
Variations on a Theme of Corelli, his music was banned in Russia, to be permitted
once again two years later. He spent much time in America, where there were
lucrative concert-tours, but established a music publishing-house in Paris and
built for himself a villa near Lucerne, where he completed his Rhapsody on a
Theme of Paganini in 1934 and his Third Symphony a year later. In 1939 he left
Europe, to spend his final years in the United States.

Rachmaninov wrote his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor in
1900 and 1901, dedicating it to Dr Nikolay Dahl. The second and third movements
of this most popular of all romantic concertos were completed in the summer of
1900 and the first movement in the following year. In November 1901 it was
performed in Moscow under the direction of Siloti, with the composer as
soloist, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. The work has retained
its position in concert repertoire, although it has at the same time had a less
fortunate influence on lesser works that have nothing of the innovative
inspiration of their model.

The first movement of the concerto opens with a series of
dramatic chords from the soloist, an introduction to the first theme, proposed
by the strings, accompanied by piano arpeggios. The second subject, quite
properly in E flat major, is introduced by a phrase on the viola, before its
statement by the soloist, rhapsodic in style, to be further developed in a
central section, before a great dynamic climax and the return of the first
subject, now marked Maestoso. Calm returns for the orchestra to go back again
to the second subject, now with an air of intense nostalgia, before the final
coda. In the slow movement the orchestra moves from C minor to the remoter key
of E major, to be joined by the soloist in music of characteristic figuration,
with the principal theme introduced by flute and clarinet before being taken up
by the soloist. There is a central section of greater animation and mounting
tension, leading to a powerful cadenza, followed by the return of the principal
theme. With scarcely a pause the orchestra embarks on the final Allegro
scherzando, providing the necessary modulation to the original key. A piano
cadenza leads to the first theme, while a second theme, marked Moderato, is
announced by the oboe and violas. Both are treated rhapsodically by the
soloist, the second theme offering a romantic contrast to the more energetic
rhythm of the first. In form the movement is a rondo, with the first theme
largely keeping its original key and the second providing harmonic variety in
different keys, the first making its second appearance in contrapuntal
imitation. The concerto ends with a grandiose apotheosis of the second theme in
a triumphant C major.

Rachmaninov gave the first performance of his technically
demanding Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor in New York on 28th November, 1909,
having apparently practised the solo part on a dummy keyboard during the
sea-crossing to America . He had written the Concerto at Ivanovka during the
summer and towards the end of his life refused to play the work, which he
preferred to entrust to the younger pianists Vladimir Horowitz and Walter
Gieseking, surprising diffidence in a player of his distinction. The first
performance under Damrosch was followed by a Carnegie Hall performance in
January 1910, under Gustav Mahler, to be greeted with critical reservations
about its length and excessive difficulties. The composer has left an account
of the rehearsal with Mahler, who spared the orchestra nothing in his
preparation of the work. The rehearsal was called for ten o’clock, with
Rachmaninov, as soloist, asked to attend an hour later. Work on the concerto
did not start until midday, leaving only half an hour more available. Mahler,
however, continued a further three quarters of an hour, before announcing that
they would now play again the first movement. It was after an hour and a half
of extra rehearsal time that Mahler finished, even then insisting that no
player should leave so long as he was on the podium. Rachmaninov recalls with
respect Mahler’s necessary strictness of discipline and his dedication and
care.

The principal theme of the first movement is announced at
the beginning by the soloist with great simplicity, over a gentle orchestral
accompaniment, a melody which one writer has traced to the Russian Orthodox
liturgy. This opening theme is of considerable importance, since much that
follows is derived from it, in one way or another. There is an expressive
second subject, derived from a rhythmic figure heard in the preceding
transition and heard as various instruments join in duet with the soloist. The
first subject provides the basis of the central development. There is an
extended cadenza, for the first part of which the composer offered a marginally
simpler and shorter version. This is interrupted by a woodwind return to the
first subject, to continue, finally followed by a much abbreviated
recapitulation. The Intermezzo, marked Adagio, opens in A major with thematic
material that bears a strong enough resemblance to an element of the principal
theme of the first movement. The soloist makes more of this and at the centre
of the movement, in a section in the mood of a scherzo, provides an
accompaniment to the first-movement theme with changed note values, now
allotted to clarinet and bassoon. There is a cadenza, before the movement moves
forward without a break to the virtuoso Finale. Here the overall unity of the
work is further ensured by the reference, before the recapitulation, to the two
first-movement themes and a later reminiscence of the rhythm with which the
concerto had opened, implicit, in any case, in the first theme of the movement.
Other thematic material is introduced at the outset, the first of four themes
to be introduced rhythmically derived from the principal theme of the first
movement and leading to a brusquely ascending figure, to massive syncopated
chords and to a romantic fourth element, the second subject proper. The
development of the material offers further opportunities for great virtuosity
and, as in the other movements, there is a cadenza, after the return of the four
thematic elements in recapitulation, and a final coda that sets the seal on a
romantic virtuoso concerto that takes the form to its peak.